Monday, January 22, 2007

Clinic

Hell has a paved front walkAnd a manicured lawn,A shade tree that must rustle its leavesIn the hours before dawn,And a street address.

Hell blackens earth with blood,But in the dark.Passersby have no idea -Not a cry, not a markEscapes the white rooms of that sanitary place.

Hell's wedged between a preschool and an embassy.The babbling children playing tag next doorAttract no baleful notice, it would seem;Unless harm rains silent, as from a reactor core.You probably expected to see more.

Even the truth-fast criers-out who comeDay after day to pray and plead in very life's defenseFind their minds grown distant and diffuseWhen the honeyed light of Sunday afternoonsWarms walls that ooze the blood of innocence.